London — The women of Afghanistan have been named recipients of the 2026 Chatham House Prize in recognition of their courage and resilience in the face of what the organisation described as systematic gender persecution.
Chatham House, the London-based research and policy institute, said the award honours Afghan women for embodying the determination of a broader global movement for women’s rights. The prize is traditionally presented to a person, group or organisation judged to have made a significant contribution to the improvement of international relations.
Women face expanding restrictions under Taliban rule
According to Chatham House, five years after the Taliban returned to power, Afghan women and girls have faced increasingly severe restrictions on their participation in public life.
The institute said women and girls have been excluded from secondary and higher education, restricted from many forms of employment and subjected to growing limitations on their freedom of movement.
Despite those restrictions, Chatham House said women across Afghanistan have continued to resist through protests, advocacy and efforts to preserve access to education.
Their resistance, the institute noted, has helped draw international attention to the treatment of women and girls in the country and the wider consequences of excluding women from public life.
Chatham House praises Afghan women’s resilience
Bronwen Maddox, Director and Chief Executive of Chatham House, praised Afghan women for demonstrating what she described as extraordinary courage and resilience despite efforts to exclude them from education, employment and public life.
The organisation said Afghan women continue to defend their rights and those of future generations while keeping alive hope and opportunities for women and girls.
Dr Farzana Shaikh, Associate Fellow in Chatham House’s Asia-Pacific Programme, described the award as recognition of Afghan women’s determination to resist being erased from public memory.
She said their resilience in the face of discriminatory laws under Taliban rule provides a powerful example for advocates of equal rights and a fairer world.
Secret schools and protests highlight resistance
Chietigj Bajpaee, Senior Research Fellow for South Asia at Chatham House, said Afghan women and girls had suffered extensively under renewed Taliban rule, particularly through restrictions affecting education, employment and freedom of movement.
He pointed to reports of girls attending secret schools and women organising demonstrations against the regime as examples of the courage being displayed in the face of adversity.
Chatham House said the decision to honour Afghan women was also intended to raise international awareness of their situation, which it said had fallen off the radar of the global community.
Award to be presented later this year
The 2026 Chatham House Prize will be presented at a special event at Chatham House later this year. The award will be accompanied by a scroll signed by His Majesty, the King of England, who is Patron of the Royal Institute of International Affairs.
Launched in 2005, the Chatham House Prize is decided through a vote by Chatham House members following nominations by the institute’s staff.
Previous recipients include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Médecins Sans Frontières and the Committee to Protect Journalists. In 2025, the prize went to Sudan’s grassroots mutual aid groups, the Emergency Response Rooms, for their humanitarian response to the war in Sudan.
The 2026 award therefore places the continuing struggle of Afghan women and girls for education, employment, freedom and participation in public life at the centre of renewed international attention.
